This invention relates to support assemblies, and in particular to rebuildable support assemblies for the various parts of an ultrasonic assembly including converters, boosters and horns.
Throughout the following, "ultrasonic" shall be used to include energy in both the sonic and ultrasonic ranges.
Recently ultrasonic apparatus have increased in economic importance with respect to bonding of disposables and non-woven products such as diapers, adult incontinence products and other items. It is common, for instance, to use ultrasonic welding in forming the buttonholes in adult incontinence products and longitudinal and perimeter seals on various disposable and sanitary products.
Certain ultrasonic bonding applications advantageously employ continuous sonics. With continuous sonics, the ultrasonic power remains on during machine operation, the horn remains in the lowered position, and a patterned anvil roll rotates beneath the horn to provide the desired bonding pattern. This structure is generally described in Persson, et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,404,052. The design of this structure can cause certain problems, however. In particular, the rotation and repeated impacts of the anvil cause a substantial amount of shock and lateral loading on the assembly which supports the various portions of the apparatus, including the horn, the converter and the booster if one is used.
Existing support assemblies are generally formed at least partly integrally with the converter, horn or booster. For instance, it is common for a grip ring (a type of support assembly) to be fastened to the body of the component by means of pegs driven directly through the ring and into blind holes in the bodyor the flange portion thereof. This method causes these pegs to provide a substantial amount of vertical support to the component body, which makes the pegs very likely to break prematurely. If one of these pegs breaks, the portion of the peg remaining in the bodymust be drilled out. This is a very difficult job considering the fact that the pegs are constructed of a very hard material such as hardened steel or titanium in order to perform their function properly. Hence the entire component is often rendered worthless by the breakage of a single one of these pegs, a substantial waste.
This invention relates to solutions of the problems raised above, and to improvements to the devices described above.